About Us

Good Foundation Inc. is a small private Canadian foundation, started in 1974 by the late Milton and Verna Good It distributes funds to charitable organizations in the communities of which family members are a part.

Where

The roots of the Foundation are in the Waterloo Region and the family now resides there and in London, Ontario, Canada, and requests from these areas have an inside track. Foundation Members outside these two centres (Toronto, for example) largely self identify opportunities. However, “communities” can be more then geographically based entities and members have pursued both provincially and nationally areas of specific interest.

What We Support

Our original mandate is quite broad in its direction to support and enrich the communities in which the Foundation’s members are involved. In its early years, it tried to spread its grants evenly over the categories of arts and culture, health, social services, research and publication, and education. More recently demands have been such that we have narrowed our focus primarily to arts and culture with more or less token grants outside these areas. Worthy requests from the health care sector in particular became quite overwhelming, and for well over a decade we have not considered annual and on-going appeals from disease and condition-specific organizations. The Foundation is quite public about its distributions and our granting history is available on our “Grants Made” page here. Reviewing our more recent grants is probably the best way to get a sense of what we support, keeping in mind that those seemingly outside our general parameters are best explained by specific member interest or connection.

Can I apply for a grant?

Strictly speaking, no. All grants at this time are member initiated or sponsored, and applications are by invitation only. That said, it is possible, by e-mail, to bring a project to the attention of Foundation members, particularly if your organization is London or Waterloo, Ontario, focused. Click on “Granting Procedure” in the side bar for these details.

Please Note: Before bringing any project to the attention of the Foundation, please check that you are a “Qualified Donee ” (Click Here). We have no ability to award funds outside of these government regulations.

Preferred Means of Communication

The Foundation communicates through e-mail, and supplementary documentation can be submitted with attached files, preferably pdf files which are easy to forward to members. Regular mail submissions are awkward for us because all material has to be reprocessed digitally for distribution. Regular mail submissions with no attached digital addresses will usually be ignored.

Members

James Milton Good

John R. Good

Eva M. Good

Thomas M. Good

James Martin Good

Margaret B. Good

Vera M. Good

Anita M. Lahey

Verna I. Good ( . . . to 1976)

Eleanor High Good ( . . . to 2001)

Milton R. Good ( . . . to 2008)

Directors

President: James Milton Good

Vice-President: John R. Good

Secretary/ Treasurer: Eva M. Good

Director: Thomas M. Good

Director: James Martin Good

Director: Anita M. Lahey

The Foundation has no professional staff and operates through the voluntary efforts of family members.

News

Grants For 2015-16

The process of grantingfor 2015-16 has now begun. We have so far received about 15 requests which have been digitally filled and can be accessed by the Directors who will be looking at them over the next month or two. Decisions will start to be made in March. Some on-going grants will account for somewhat over $160,000 of available funds, but there is well over $100,000 still to be assigned.

Grants For 2014-15

Granting for 2014-15 has now concluded with $299,100 of our approximately $300,000 objective having been assigned. A “Special Grant” for $100,000 was made to Western University making the total funding for 2014-15 $399,100. Special Grants are from windfall or flow-through funding and do not normally affect our regular distributions.

New “Good Foundation Theatre” in Downtown London

Fanshawe College Foundation has today, March 21st, 2014, issued a press release regarding a grant from Good Foundation Inc. for $500,000 towards its “Centre for Digital and Performance Arts” in downtown London. The theatre in this complex will be known as the “Good Foundation Theatre.” Fanshawe News release-CDPA grand opening.pdf.

[This website is always in progress and the links keep being revised.]

Granting Procedure

Preferred Means of Communication

The Foundation communicates through e-mail, and supplementary documentation can be submitted with attached files, preferably pdf files which are easy to forward to members. Regular mail submissions are awkward for us because all material has to be reprocessed digitally for distribution. Regular mail submissions with no attached digital addresses will usually be ignored.

A NOTE ON TIMING

For the past few years, in order to keep the workload manageable without any professional staff, the Foundation begins in January to assemble items for possible Board consideration and starts to make its decisions based on materials circulated electronically to members. This process continues until the funds available for the year are gone. Cheques for grants made can start being issued after April 1st, the beginning of our fiscal year. For the past several years, all funds have been assigned by late May, and the Foundation essentially closes up for the remainder of the calendar year. While we can file requests received afterwards in our “next year list,” (now 2015), requests received in June through December often seem dated and disadvantaged in the context of the newer requests appearing while active consideration is underway.

The Foundation does not have a specific deadline for requests, and the status of its proceedings can be monitored through the “News” section of this website which we try to keep up to date.

All grants are approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors which will consider any application sponsored by a member of the Foundation.

Grants are given to organizations and causes in which members have some interest and involvement. A member can declare an interest in a cause or organization and that organization will be invited to outline its project and supply the necessary documentation for an application to be presented to the Directors.

No unsponsored applications will be presented to the Board. However, there is still a way to make your cause known to the Foundation. See the box below.

If you have a project or cause you think might fit with the Foundation’s mission and the recent focuses and interests of its members, you may contact us through our e-mail address and explain, either in the e-mail or in an attachment (preferably a pdf file), why this project might be a fit. If it does meet our general criteria, the information will be circulated to members, any one of whom may decide to sponsor the application to the Board. You will probably be asked for more information if the request does go forward, although going forward is no guarantee in itself of receiving a grant. We get many more worthy and reasonable requests than we accommodate.

If and when the Foundation agrees to accept an application, click on “Application Requirements” on the side bar.

The Foundation must file annually with the CRA, a filing which includes receipts (with the appropriate charitable number) for all donations it has made during the past year. The CRA will also accept from us receipts from regional municipalities as listed on their website. We will not consider further requests from any organization that has failed to provide us with a proper followup and timely receipt for a received grant.

INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS

Requests for consideration will not be accepted from the following organizations because proper followup was not provided for past grants:

Get Active Now (Waterloo Region) #371

London & Area Food Bank (London) #401

Theatre & Company (Kitchener) #471

If you think your organization should not be on this list, please get in touch.

Need to Know

This page is rather boring, but going through it carefully can save you and us time and effort. If you are considering making a request to Good Foundation Inc. (GFI) you should be aware of the following:

GFI can grant only to organizations who can issue charitable receipts acceptable to the Canada Revenue Agency, although these are not necessarily identical to tax receipts given to individual donors. Receipts from other government agencies may also be acceptable. Individuals must be sponsored by or work through such organizations or agencies so that proper receipts can be issued. (For CRA definition, click here.)

Organizations that have not provided proper followup for past grants will not be considered. (For a list of ineligible organizations so the bottom of the “Granting Procedure” page.)

GFI’s focus is highly regional. Chances of interesting members in local projects outside of the London and Waterloo regions in Ontario are slim. Provincial, national, and international grants are possible, but have been done mainly through organizations which have a regional presence, or in cases where members have a direct connection to the organization or project.

Support for one-time events or projects is more likely than requests for on-going operating funding leading to annual requests. We do recognize that some worthwhile endeavours require only annual operating funds and we will sometimes consider one-time multi-year requests, but not on-going annual commitments to operating budgets.

GFI does not support disease or condition specific medical organizations, worthy as they may be.

Conventions, conferences, seminars and deficits are not normally supported.

GFI does not normally contribute to endowment funds unless the fund has been initiated by the Foundation or its members or it is in support of a project we have funded.

Although the charter of the Foundation speaks of grants for “charitable, religious, and educations purposes,” in practice, the Foundation records its grants under the following categories: Arts; Education; Health; Heritage; and Social Services. For various reasons, our focus is now more on Arts, Culture, and Heritage. NB: The Foundation has never granted funds for specifically religious purposes, although in many instances religious organizations have proved the best vehicles for furthering social, heritage, or artistic projects.

GFI has made grants from $200 to $500,000 but requests at either end of that spectrum are neither practical (low end) nor realistic (high end). Particularly at the upper end, the grants were dictated by very special circumstances. Check carefully the “Grants Made” recent sections for a sense of what the Foundation is currently doing.

E-Mail is the best means of contact since regular mail sometimes accumulates at the London address when nobody is home. All items circulated are through digital means, so it is easiest when they arrive that way. . The Foundation’s answering machine goes unchecked when the family is not in residence.

GFI’s fiscal year is April 1 to March 31; it is significant because funds become available on April 1 and are assigned and distributed until disbursement quotas are reached. NB: We are now (October, 2014) finished with the selection of projects for 2014-15 with $299,100 of the approximately $300,000 committed.

GFI would be defined as a “small” (under $10,000,000) private foundation. It now distributes up to $300,000 a year, far less that the opportunities it recognizes and the requests it receives.

Application Requirements

This material is required for a full application, not for a preliminary request. You do not need to provide detailed information–nor will it be distributed to Members–unless you have been invited to submit a full application.

The intent of this two-step process is to cut down on the work for your organization and ours.

If you are a first-time applicant, then these areas should be covered. If you have received previous grants and the Foundation is familiar with your operations you can take shortcuts–e.g. neither Western University nor Conrad Grebel University College need submit full audited financial statements or Board names. The financial arrangements for the particular project should still be clear.

Full Application Materials

a brief description of the organization’s history and objectives, although this can be minimized for organizations known to us

the purpose of the grant and the aims of the project

a financial budget for the project showing expected sources of funds and items of expense

a copy of the organization’s most recent financial statements, audited where possible

the membership of the Board of Directors and a list of officers

Most convenient for us is electronic submission through files attached to our e-mail: good_foundation@rogers.com. In fact, technically we accept only electronic submissions and only rarely respond through regular mail. We appreciate pdf files (Adobe) wherever possible since is that is how our members share material, but we can convert other files to that format if necessary.

Grants Made

Since its 1974 beginnings and now well into its granting for the 41st fiscal year, the Foundation has made 556 grants amounting to $5,109,992 of which $572,000 remains outstanding.

The median of the 556 grants so far is $2,500, and the average is $9,027. However, of the grants made since 2001, the median is $5,000, and the average is $15,106–but the averages are skewed by three or four larger grants.

Our fiscal year is April 1st to March 31st and most grants are awarded in the first part of the fiscal year. Thus, “2012 Grants,” for example, lists grants for the 2012-13 fiscal year, but all grants were in fact made in 2012.

2014 Grants

Orchestra London [$5,000]

Conrad Grebel University College [continuing]

K-W Symphony [$5,000]

The ARTS Project – Hyatt Fund (London)

Fanshawe College -”Good Foundation Theatre” [continuing]

Brassroots (London) [$6,500]

Shalom Counselling Services [$20,000]

St.Joseph’s Hospice (London) [$15,000]

Wilfred Laurier University Faculty of Education [$20,000 over 2 years]

Music and Opera Association (Stratford)

DaCapo Chamber Choir (Waterloo)

Stratford Summer Music

The Grand Theatre (London) [$15,000]

High Park Nature Centre [$3,600]

London Fringe Theatre Festival [$5,000]

Western University – Alice Munro Chair

INNERchamber-Stratford

Aeolian Hall Musical Arts Association

Al Purdy A-frame Association [$5,000]

K-W Chamber Music Society [$2,000]

Pacific Opera Victoria [continuing]

Stratford Shakespearean Festival [continuing]

Coastal Discovery Centre, Main-à-Dieu, NS [continuing]

Philanthropic Foundations Canada

Western University – Special Grant ($100,000)

[Total of Funds Committed to date for 2014: $299,100. A "Special Grant" has raised the total distributions for the year to $399,100.]

Contact

For inquiries or to bring your project to the attention of the Foundation, contact the President, James (Jim) Good, at the following e-mail address. Or, you may contact any other member of the Foundation, should you be acquainted with him or her, in order to bring your request to the attention of our organization.

GFI Logo

Should you have occasion to refer to the Foundation in print or on the web, the correct legal name is “Good Foundation Inc.” We do have a logo in various forms. The full “logo plus” gives not only the the Foundation name but refers to the founders and the date established. It works in situations where the size is large enough to permits the details to be seen. The second version is the Foundation’s legal name and is equally acceptable and often easier to insert. Both version are in black and white and colour, in large and medium “.tiff” files, and in small “jpg” files usually big enough for web listings. There are also .ESP files for each which, according to the designer is a, “scalable vector format – good if you needed to ever produce something large like a banner.” He adds that “the EPS is basically the ‘master copy’ from which other sizes should be made if you want to do it yourself.”

The logo was designed in 2010 by Jeff Kulak. It alludes to the 1950′s and ’60′s corporate signature of H. Boehmer and Company Ltd., the core business of Milton R. Good, the Foundation’s founder and principal funder.